


"Was I Not Supposed to Strangle the Fish?"

by Kae_the_Minish_Bandit



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Fishing Hole, Gen, Kokiri Forest, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Sarcasm, a heck ton of references, censored curse words, cuccofish are terrifying, its a puppet show, references, rip fish, wait thats a tag? heck yeah!, what fourth wall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27213817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kae_the_Minish_Bandit/pseuds/Kae_the_Minish_Bandit
Summary: "Who's no fun?" Another Kokiri pops out from behind a log. This one has green hair and a soft-looking turtleneck. "Oooh! Is it Link annoying hours? Because if so, I have a whole list of things that annoy him!"When the girl notices the other Links, she starts. "I didn't notice you there! Hi, my name's Saria, welcome to the Kokiri forest! If this is your first time here, you guys have a mandatory puppet show to go to!"~~This is a gift fic for the LU Artist Appreciation Project, for Lucy!
Relationships: Saria (Legend of Zelda) & Time (Linked Universe), Time & Twilight (Linked Universe), Time & Warriors (Linked Universe)
Kudos: 45





	"Was I Not Supposed to Strangle the Fish?"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dontjudgemyfanfichistory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dontjudgemyfanfichistory/gifts).



> This was inspired by this piece of artwork, which can I say IS FREAKING AMAZING!!!!!  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CEXZUvGpyx_/

The group of Links travelled across Time’s Hyrule Field. Why, they had no idea whatsoever. The fact that Time was uncharacteristically happy would have led the companions to believe that they were visiting Malon. The only problem was that the ranch was in the opposite direction.

Nearing the edge of the field, the group could see a log set into the hill, and an archway cut into the log. The tunnel through the log looked fairly ominous; they could not see through. So naturally this was where Time led them.

Passing through the arch is like passing through a portal. The rather arid terrain of Hyrule field yields to lush underbrush, the dry air becoming moist. It’s also much cooler in the shade. It’s quite a beautiful forest, actually. It reminds Four of the Minish Woods and Sky of the Faron Woods.

“Follow me closely. You really don’t want to get lost here. You’ll turn into a skeleton!” The look on Time’s face is a bit….. psychotic. He looks much younger than he normally would. There’s no way to tell if he’s joking or not, and so the Links follow him.

They wander through the lost woods seemingly at random. If you look closely, you can see Time tilting his head slightly at every turn. He seems to be listening to something. What Time was listening to is anybody’s guess. The forest is silent save for their padded footsteps.

They continue this way for about half an hour. Time seems to change. There seems to be a child in him. His form is semitransparent, and gradually, in place of their leader, there is a bright-eyed child. Who Warriors seems to recognize.

“What the f***.”

“Anything to say, Captain?” the miniature Time spreads his arms to show the area they have stopped at. It is a group of buildings, several of which are in trees. There are children peeking out from behind of the buildings clad similarly to the tiny Time.

“Who are the Newcomers?”

“Do they bring weapons?”

“Are they yet lost to the woods?”

“Chill, guys. They’re with me.” mini Time leads them to a treehouse with a sign that clearly says ‘Link’s House’, though it has fallen to neglect.

"Welcome to my humble abode."

The chairs are a bit worn down, the bed is unmade, and there are many spiderwebs, but the house still seems cozy.

"I would say 'not-so-humble', but you've got some explaining to do, old man." Legend is beyond irritated at the scenario. He's downright furious at Time. This is more than just a personal secret. This is something that Time clearly knew would come up, but he had opted not to tell them.

Wind laughs. "You're really still calling him old man? He looks younger than me!" And it's true. The younger Time looks nine or ten, twelve at most.

"You want answers, Mr. King of Salt? This is the Kokiri forest, home to the Kokiri, as I would think you would be able to tell by the name. As I would hope, anyway."

Wild and Wind share a look, but only Wild ventures to ask, "Like the Koroks?" Time nods, a bit too excitedly.

"Apparently, the Kokiri evolved into the Koroks to not drown when the entirety of Hyrule flooded. By the way, goddesses, that was a  _ terrible _ solution. Maybe next time use sliced bread. Sliced bread solves everything. But that was about as off-topic as off-topic can get. Y'all asked about the Koroks. As far as I can figure, a Kokiri can live off of almost nothing, save  _ maybe _ fruit. The author had a  _ very _ long debate on whether Kokiri needed food or not, and settled on a compromise based on a panel or three of the manga."

"How?" There's a general murmur of questioning among the Links. _ Everybody needs food, right? _

"Does it look like I would know? AnyWAY, it seems like the fruit wouldn't grow anymore, because of the 'ethereal waters' and all that crap, so they evolved to eat sunlight using this magic spell called photosynthesis."

"That's how all plants make food, and it's a scientific process!" can be heard from outside the treehouse. Time brushes it off and continues. "Anyway, you guys see me as a kid either because I lived in the forest for so long that the magic was like infused in me, or I'm already half-kokiri."

Warriors starts to ask a question, "Were you actually a child when-" Time cuts him off.

"That's actually debatable. See, I was physically 12 when I decided to help you stab everything, and I had not actually matured past that point, but mentally I was at least in my teens because Reasons."

Twilight's done with Time's bulls***. He can put up with Time being cryptic as heck when he's an adult, but when he's a child, Twilight's patience is already wearing thin. (Breaking the record previously set by Wild.)

"Are you going to elaborate or just be vague?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to take that as an 'I'll be vague.'"

"As you should."

There's silence for a few minutes as the group contemplates what had just happened. Well, Time was going through his old stuff and the  _ rest _ of the Links were contemplating.

There were surprising objects in the cabinets of Time's house. Along with regular items such as carved animals and pencils, there were several large tomes. In Time's Hylian, they read 'the Lord of the Rings.' Going further into the drawer revealed small replicas of weapons several of the Heroes had. Even though some of the weapons were only found in the future, Time somehow had replicas of them. There were also strange figurines, made of an ancient material known only as plastic. Time's drawers were a gold mine for relics.

The smaller Time, seemingly desperate to end the silence (which was strange when compared to how Time normally was rather closed off), began to talk while still going through his stuff.

"So  _ anyway _ , you guys are going to get a puppet show from the Kokiri." Wind starts to say something. He looks a bit uncomfortable at the mention of puppets.

"Uh-uh-uh," says the tiny Time, cutting of whatever Wind might have been about to say. "I honestly have to stop doing that. But  _ no complaining _ . I think it might be part of what keeps them alive, I'm not sure. But they're also immortal children who live in the forest, what do you want from them?"

"Also," he continues "just a heads-up, the Kokiri are a  _ bit  _ more aware of the fourth wall than the average Hylian, I've checked. That might just be an excuse for the author to feel free to reference whatever she wants and completely shatter the fourth wall."

Time shrugs. "To each their own." Then he goddesses-damned winks at the camera.

"The f*** is the fourth wall?"

Time smiles in an almost reassuring way, but there's something canine about it that makes some of the group doubt it's sincerity.

"That's for the author to know, and you to hopefully never find out lest you join in her shenanigans."

"Anyways, follow me!"

Instead of using the ladder to get down, Time literally just jumps down. He lands on the ground rather like a cat; perfectly poised on his toes. He motions for the rest of the group to follow him, and the majority of the group climbs down the ladder. The exceptions are Wind and Wild, both of whom mimic Time. They both land less gracefully, but both look exhilarated when they pick themselves up off of the ground.

It's eerie how similar yet different this child is to the leader they know. He grins in the same way, though arguably more often. He walks in the same way, heck, he even forms his words in the same way. To put the differences as clearly as possible, Time seems more aware in the woods. Aware of the nature around them, aware of forces beyond their comprehension. It's a bit frightening, actually.

Time leads them through the town. What had once been an empty husk of a town was now full of Kokiri and fairies, each bustling around, doing tasks.

Time weaves through the crowd, stopping to talk with almost every child he sees. As one could imagine, this slows the group down  _ a lot _ .

Wind tries to listen in on their conversations, but the dialect is nothing he can understand. He's not sure if it even is a language. To Wind, it sounds more like the noises of the forest; leaves rustling and birds chirping.

The company finally makes it past the crowd, and, following Time, make their way past a red-headed boy guarding yet another tunnel. ("I suppose you can pass," the boy says defeatedly. Time's cough that follows sounds suspiciously like 'jerk!')

The area they enter is filled with the shell of a giant, dead tree. One that several of the Heroes recognize. Unfortunately, Wild and Wind don't realize that it is dead.

They exclaim in unison "the Great Deku Tree!"

The miniature Time just shakes and bows his head and directs them to an unrelated, but significantly cuter sapling, who is smiling serenely.

" _ You’re _ the heroes of ages long ago and far in the future." Most of the group is stunned, with the exception of Time, who rolls his eyes. Pleased with the general reaction, the little tree continues. "Link, did you get the reference?"

"Thanks for ruining the mood. Also, generally if you're going to reference Harry Potter, reference the books,  _ not  _ the movies. The author specifically checked to see if it was in the book while she was writing this thread."

"You're no fun!"

"She likes to be precise-"

"Who's no fun?" Another Kokiri pops out from behind a log. This one has green hair and a soft-looking turtleneck. "Oooh! Is it Link annoying hours? Because if so, I have a whole  _ list  _ of things that annoy him!"

When the girl notices the other Links, she starts. "I didn't notice you there! Hi, my name's Saria, welcome to the Kokiri forest! If this is your first time here, you guys have a mandatory puppet show to go to!"

She shows them over to a miniature outdoors auditorium.

The group decides to go with the flow; there's basically nothing else they can do.

"We have  _ so  _ many plays. You guys can choose!" Saria leans closer to Wind and whispers conspiratorially. "I can tell you which ones are best for embarrassing Link here." Wind grins. This was going to be fun.

"Saria why."

"So we can torture you! Since I'm older, it's basically my job to reign supreme over you until you're taller than me!"

"Technically I am taller than you-"

"Not for these purposes! Now, which plays do you guys want? We have 'Please shut the f*** up, I speak for the trees,' 'ocarina throwing because of infinite royal family treasures', an instance where you," Saria points at Twilight "get a yiga girlfriend, and my of all, 'Was I not supposed to strangle the fish?'" Wild and Twilight are confused, each about different things.

_ Why would he date a yiga? _

_ What even is a yiga and why would I date one? _

"Please do not pick the last one, I will give you literally anything to  _ not  _ watch it." Time is clearly desperate for them to not watch it, so what do you think they do? Well, Four bargains with Time. Four ends up casting his vote for the ‘speaking for the trees’ play in exchange for Time’s weird hat. ( _ It looks like Ezlo, shut up. _ ) Four’s vote doesn’t count against seven other voters, however. In the end, they watch the last one, with Time groaning the entire time.

Several Kokiri walk up onto the stage with socks on their hands. One is green, one is blue and has a headband, and one is silver. There appear to be several props such as little ovals resembling several different types of fish, and some that look as if they could strap onto the 'faces' of the puppets.

Even more children appear with instruments. (Seriously, how many Kokiri  _ are _ there?) One who's hair resembles the oracle Farore's, if Farore was blonde, has a viola, and several others have flutes. A boy has a massive brass instrument that has to be held up by a friend. They start to play music that's suspenseful and honestly feels like it would be perfect if it was playing for a sneak mission.

The red-haired boy from earlier waves his hands, stopping the music, which is a bit disappointing. The music was amazingly good, surprisingly, they sounded almost professional.  _ Which is the problem. They're immortal children, how long have they had to practice? _

"Guys, the Pink Panther theme is for the Yiga girlfriend play! We need Kahoot music for this!"

"Why would we ever do such a thing, Mido? Let's play the Wii theme, guys!"

Mido corrects them over and over. This goes on for a few minutes, back and forth, until the girl who resembles Farore steps in. (Saria is watching the proceedings from the sidelines with a smile. She loves watching her siblings bicker.) "GUYS JUST FREAKING PLAY THE KOKIRI FOREST ORCHESTRAL ARRANGEMENT-"

"Geez, Fado. We  _ get _ it, okay?" Wind knew a Fado who was a Kokiri, but A) the Fado he knew was dead, and B) Fado was a boy for him.  _ Huh. _

And so the play starts.

A Kokiri known in the forest simply as 'one of the twins' starts off the play. He narrates with a voice that sounds too deep for his vocal chords; it seems a bit strained. It's amusing in its own sense.

"Even though the moon was to fall in three days' time, and Link was to fight it-" the twin is interrupted by Sky raising his hand and waving it frantically.

"This isn't the Knight Academy, you know, right?" This is said at a more regular pitch than the ridiculous monotone he was using seconds ago.

It's unexpected for the twin to know that Sky had been at the Knight Academy, but Sky takes it in stride. "Is this story true?"

"Why the heck would it not be?" This from Saria, who manages to disappear and reappear at random intervals. It's quite a talent.

Warriors turns to Time. "So you really did fight the moon.  _ How _ did I not know that?"

Time is miffed by the fact that almost no one had even considered that he was telling the truth when he said that. "What did you think that entire pulling-the-moon-down-from-the-sky move was about?"

Warriors shrugs. "I thought you were just being the dramatic little s*** you were sometimes."

"Valid but also how dare you-"

"I love how we're three seconds into the play and you've already interrupted it. The show must go on however, and if you disagree, well, we'll perform 'Don't Lose Your Head' with us as Henry VIII and you as Anne Boleyn."

"Okay?" None of the Links had any context for that whatsoever, but judging by the gleam in the miniature Time's eye as he gives the speaker a thumbs up, it can't be anything good.

"Now, as I was saying, Link thought it was a good time to go fishing." A companion of the twin holds up the green puppet and a fishing rod.

One of the know-it-all brothers steps forward and launches into a lecture about the economy of Termina. "Given the pricing for each game versus the price for fishing, it would be cheaper for game stores to just buy fishing hole passes instead of something more valuable, such as a heart piece. Assuming that each game costs about 20 rupees per round, and on average it takes 3-4 tries to win, that would mean that the total income would be 10-30 rupees per player, once you subtract the 50 rupees for the fishing hole pass. Of course, that's assuming that a pass is the same price as buying a ticket to fish. It could also be cheaper, just a way to attract customers to the fishing holes. Either way, it's much simpler to just buy a fishing hole pass versus any other prizes. Due to this-"

"I know that you could go on forever, but to sum it up, Link had a  _ lot _ of fishing hole passes to use. Like infinity fishing passes."

"Infinity isn't a number! It's more of a concept! And in this case, you would use the word ‘infinite!’" This faint note can be heard throughout the auditorium, and the narrator just completely ignores it. They have to be professional, after all.

"It was a pretty poor decision by the developers. Why would you need so many fishing passes? But, to be reasonable, if they were not going to give you fishing passes, what the  _ heck _ else were they supposed to give you, rupees? Link had already completely filled up the bank!"

Tiny slips of paper are thrown in the air. As they floated down, Twilight couldn't help but notice how it resembles snow. Gliding through the air, the paper somehow the same pure white as snow, it looks as though winter is coming early to the forest.

The illusion shatters when Twilight picks up one of the pieces of paper. It's a fishing hole pass. And so are the rest. "How are there so many?" he asks Time, an eyebrow raised.

"The fact that one of the twins said that I had about infinity passes should be answer enough, actually."

"True." Twilight pauses, looking around in awe at the sheer amount of paper. "But I assumed it was an exaggeration, not.....  _ this _ .”

The miniature Time shrugs. "The more you know."

The little Deku tree is a bit irritated that there's just paper lying around on the forest floor (that's littering you idiots!), but he's willing to let it go just this once.

_ Just this once. _

It ends up being more than once, but that isn't the subject of this story.

"Link decided that it was a good idea to use his fishing hole passes at the Swamp instead of at the great Bay, because he can't find the latter for the life of him."

The puppeteer holds up the green puppet that the Links have figured out by now represents Time. In an actually pretty good impression of Time, the Kokiri says, "I'm pretty sure that the Ocean fishing hole is an urban legend."

"It actually wasn't, but that's a tale for another day." The twin picks the story back up. "Link was just absolutely  _ vibing  _ on his way to the Swamp. Of course, the nameless, generic Fishing Hole Guy had to go ruin the day. We'll call him Bob for the sake of the story's flow."

"Which also makes it factually incorrect, you know. I don't think he actually had a name." Time says this with the hopes that it will distract his companions from the idiocy that is to follow. It doesn't work, of course.

"It's a story, of course some of the details are gonna be made up. What do you expect?" Four, at the very least, seems to be enjoying the story. His eyes are sparkling with a warm color that is reminiscent of a fireplace. He looks irritated for a second as his eyes flash blue.

" _ The fishing hole man's name is Bob _ ." This is said rather forcefully, and the blue puppet is held up for emphasis. “I'm Bob, and I'm tired of having to run this fishing hole. It's boring as heck and everyone who comes here is stupid. Nobody even wants to fish in this modern day and age. 'Who wants to fish when there are bombchu bowling alleys and pot-breaking competitions, they say.' But naturally I have to be all chill and nice to attract non-existent customers!  _ Oh, the horror! _ " All of this is said in a dramatic yet whiny voice that amplifies the annoyingness of the words.

The narrator Kokiri is trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably.

Saria surveys the Kokiri disapprovingly. "We've  _ got _ to practice these more so we can deliver the lines in a ridiculous fashion without falling apart immediately."

Four, as a whole, feels like the reactions to their own lines are probably the best part, but he doesn't say so. He simply nods and waits for the laughter to cease.

The narrator regains what little composure he had and continues in his ridiculously deep version of his voice. "When Link goes into the fishing hole area, Bob is sitting there, bored as can be. He hasn't had a customer in about seven years, and suspects that they're going to the beach fishing hole instead."

Legend interrupts the increasingly ridiculous story with a very important question. "How do you know what he was thinking?"

Time immediately responds. "Mask of Truth. It was  _ very _ interesting to hear what people thought of a child running around with a sword killing monsters and making it seem like he was changing the flow of time."

"What."

"What?"

The Kokiri see a chance to continue their story and seize it. There's still one thousand, eight hundred, and sixty words and so many references to go after this sentence, after all.

"After the fishing rod is thrown in Link's face after he shows Bob about 20 of the fishing hole passes, Link tries for hours and hours to catch a fish with no luck. Since he's a dummy-"

"Which I am not!" Time’s protest seems immature, but that’s a given, since he’s so short and is a child.

"That's debatable, Link. Weren't you the one who tried to climb that-"

" _ We do not talk about that.  _ That was a cursed childhood memory if I’ve ever had one."

" _ So _ since Link's a dummy, he had just completely ignored the information about the fish he could catch,  _ and _ the instructions on how to fish in the first place and just started fishing on the spot."

"So Time  _ is _ a dumba** after all. I've been wondering for quite a while."

_ This _ was why Time had been trying to avoid. He had been trying to avoid sounding like an idiot in front of his closest companions. Although....

"If you guys are all other incarnations of me, then if I'm stupid then you are too."

That got them quiet. They weren't quiet because he was  _ right _ , per se. They were quiet because they were considering every insult they had ever thrown at one another. They had technically been insulting themselves, apparently. This thought process leads them to realizing that they have, in fact, all done stupider things then not read fishing instructions.

_ Oops. _

Of course, the realization that they were all just as stupid as Time was didn't stop them from laughing at his expense. Quite the contrary, actually. They laughed harder than ever before.

The Kokiri, seeing the reactions, thought it was high time to finish up this chaotic story sooner or later, but had to cut out what would have been some quality content.

"It says to insert 'various mask shenanigans here' on the script."

"We're going to have to skip that, do you see how much got written for 7  _ very short notes? _ The author is running out of time to write, but still wants to be able to deliver quality content."

"We keep in  _ that _ reference, though, right?"

"Of course! Why would we ever get rid of  _ that _ ? If anything’s quality content,  _ that _ is."

And so the puppet show continues. Among the Links, what only Time notices is that the twins have switched. They don’t look any different from each other, but Time lived with them for years. Of course he can tell them apart.

"Once Link discovered the very useful talent called paying attention to his surroundings, (which funnily enough, the author has not yet learned) he noticed the signs for the various types of fish he could catch here.'"

“May I?” Asks another one of the know-it-all brothers. After a nod of approval from one of the twins, the Kokiri launches into yet another speech on the various facts on Termina. “In the swamp fishing hole, there are twelve different varieties of fish that you can catch. One of them is a secret boss fish that resembles Lord Jabu Jabu, while two other types are simply generic Terminian fish. Other than that, the rest of the fish that you can find at this fishing hole each have a very specific characteristic that defines how you catch them. For instance, the Mooranha is a variant of the piranha that apparently had evolved to have a thirst for cows. Why, the author is unsure of, but it’s an interesting fish nonetheless. There is also the fragrant Reekfish, which also appears in the era of Twilight in Zora’s domain. Most importantly for the purpose of this story, there is a chicken fish that can be attracted with the Bremen’s mask.”

One of the other Kokiri disagree. "No, it clearly says  _ fire chicken _ . The chicken has fire powers."

"Idiots! It's a  _ free _ chicken. The chicken is  _ outside _ ."

Hyrule leans over and asks Legend. "What the heck is a chicken?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

The argument continues between the Kokiri. "You're calling me an idiot? Chickens don't even exist in this universe, how could they be on the sign? You guys are  _ all  _ misreading it. It's a cuccofish."

" _ Oh. _ "

The story continues at a slightly more frantic pace. None of the Links are sure  _ why  _ exactly this is, but it can’t matter too much, right? "So naturally, as all Links find a mortal enemy in cuccos, save Hylia’s chosen hero, which is because he has  _ remlits  _ instead, Link sees this as a great opportunity to exact revenge on cuccos  _ without _ stabbing one 47 times in the chest. Link should have known better, since, as Paul the llama with a lovely hat once said, 'that kills people, Carl!'"

"Sorry,  _ llamas with hats? _ I know  _ exactly _ what I'm doing when I get back to my Hyrule."

"Wild,  _ no _ ." Twilight can't deal with a miniature Time  _ and _ a Wild right now. It’s bad enough with Wild, who’s simply a gremlin, but Time is currently a child gremlin, and everybody knows that those are ten times worse.

"So anyWAY, Link decided that this was a  _ great  _ time to not use a fishing rod.”

Time is side-eyed by Twilight, while Wild gives him two thumbs up and a cheeky grin.  _ At least one of them approves. _

“This actually happens to be to Link’s advantage. It took a while, but eventually he caught the dreaded cuccofish. It honestly looked a bit creepy.” A drawing of fish that resembles a cucco, as suggested by its name, is slightly off-white and seems to be staring into your soul. (The reader’s soul.)

“Aww, he’s so cute!” The other Links look at Sky in horror. He seems mesmerised by the fish, which is  _ literally just a cardboard cutout of a fish Sky you can do better than that. _

Saria knows how the story is going to end, and it’s difficult for her to not laugh her head off. “You think he’s cute? Well, remember the name of the play, and don’t blame us when  _ your one true love _ is str-”

“Spoilers!”

“It’s literally in the title Fado, nobody cares.”

Sky is blushing like nobody’s business. He’s clearly embarrassed how the narrator implied ‘one true love’ crap was referring to the fish, which Wind can’t really blame him for. The entire group of Links knew he only had eyes for Sun. (To be fair, Sun was cute as heck. She seemed to enjoy pushing Sky off high places a  _ little  _ too much.

"But wait!" gasps a Kokiri from the sidelines a little  _ too  _ dramatically. "What about Peatrice?" The Kokiri laughs. "Just kidding, we all know you've only got eyes for Zelda of the Knight Academy, reincarnation of the goddess."

Sky is shocked. How do they know that? He hasn't even told any of the Links about her yet. Why are they so knowledgeable on the subject of his love life?

As if reading Sky's mind, another child pipes in. "What better subject to pursue than a Link's love life? It gets a bit boring here in the forest. Our meme privileges were taken away, you know. By the way, is the 'engagement to a zora' thing gonna be a repeating trope? Because I'm all for it!"

Time and Wild are blushing madly, while the rest just have a slightly warm face. It's just a bit strange to know that immortal children were monitoring their lives.

"If only they knew how many people online were shipping them-" Mido murmurs under his breath.

To save the walls from crumbling (which they arguably already are), Fado returns the subject to Peatrice. "No one cares about her, anyway. She's only nice to Link once she thinks he likes her."

Sky knows Peatrice  _ was  _ like that, but he apologised and she did as well. All’s well that ends well, right? He starts to say this, but is cut off by the Kokiri once more.  _ Why does this keep happening? _

"Well, the show mUST GO ON, because the author needs to sleep tonight, so thus we continue our  _ lovely _ yet conveniently crackish story."

“When Link finally caught the dreaded cuccofish, he just strangled the heck out of it. Now, this wouldn't have been a problem if this fishing hole  _ wasn't _ catch and release.

Even though Link definitely knew that he was not supposed to kill the fish,” 

“We  _ think  _ that Link knew, actually. He was being very vague about this story. It’s amazing that we got this much out of him, to be honest. It’s basically Link’s job at this point to be vague.” Fado chimes in with some information, and Legend has to agree. Time’s a professional at dodging questions. (Four’s got him beat in that category, somehow.)

“Link, who pretended to be innocent though he  _ clearly _ wasn’t,” This was coming from Mido, who the Links could gather had a longtime rivalry with Time. They had been looking like they were going to stab each other whenever either of them talked. “Said to the  _ actually  _ innocent Bob ‘Was I not supposed to strangle the fish?’”

“By this point, the fishing hole man (“HIS NAME’S BOB!” “No it isn’t!”)is just  _ done _ . He’s done with waiting here for years and done with all the weird crap that Link is pulling, so he throws the fishing hole passes back at Link and tells him to just  _ get out  _ of the swamp fishing hole.”

“So,” the twin, who’s narration had stopped a while ago, said, looking over the script. “That’s the end of it.” 

Time is relieved that the torture is over, but is also happy that he’s back in the forest, if only temporarily. This was where he grew up, his childhood, before he was  _ forced  _ to grow up. It’s calming.

But that’s before Hylia decides it’s a great time to yeet them through dimensions. They’re swirling and disappearing and having the mass of a neutron star all in a millisecond. And when they land once more, they are in a completely different Hyrule. Hyrule’s Hyrule.

The excitement Time had seconds ago has vanished. He had just gotten to what he considered his second home before he had to leave. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to catch up with Saria, or even simply say ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’!

“Well that was….  _ Interesting _ .” This comment from Warriors sums up the events pretty well.

“Hey! Time’s a responsible adult again!” Wind is right. Time is once again the tallest Link in the chain, heavy armor back on. 

“You know, now we can go back to the Kokiri forest whenever we want without having to watch a puppet show.” One of the main reasons he had wanted to go in the first place was to make going back easier and easier. 

“ _ Excellent. _ ”

Time knows that if he wants to talk to Saria, there are other methods. Not as good as speaking face-to-face, but a way to talk nonetheless.

Ocarina to his lips, Time plays Saria’s song. To the other Links, it accompanies the colors and sounds of the forest, and to Time, years of playing in the sunshine.

What Saria says makes him laugh harder than he ever has.

_ You forgot your hat, idiot. _

**Author's Note:**

> This was so fun to write, and it is actually is the longest thing I've ever written. How, I'm unsure, but I'm so glad I finished!


End file.
